Myocardial and Pericardial Lesions Due to Non-penetrating Injury.

Subacute and chronic affections of the myocardium due to non-penetrating injuries have in the past been regarded as extremely rare. Traumatic rupture of the cardiac valves, papillary muscles, and chordc tendine are described in detail in most textbooks; yet isolated myocardial and pericardial lesions, though undoubtedly more common, are scarcely mentioned except in more recent manuals dealing with diseases due to trauma, such as those by Stern (1930), Brady and Kahn (1937), and Spicer (1939). Papers by Beck (1935) and by Bright and Beck (1935) have dealt especially with such cardiac muscle injuries. In my monograph (Warburg, 1938) I analysed 189 collected cases of traumatic heart disease, 158 of which seemed well substantiated, and added 13 new cases. This covered the long period from 1676, when Oluff Borch observed the first case, to the end of 1937. To these 202 cases analysed in 1938, I can now add 54 published cases previously overlooked and 5 new unpublished cases, making 261 in all. After excluding some of the earlier ones as doubtful, there remain 225 well-substantiated cases to form the basis of this review. One third of these have been published during the last five years. The 59 new cases, not included in my previous study, are as follows: Bricheteau (1844), Steiger (1864), Muller (1879), Barth and Roger (1880), Reynier (1880) two cases, Barber (1912), Fraenkel (1917), Krumbhaar and Crowell (1925), Coffen (1930), Meixner (1931) four cases, E. E. Davis (1931), N. S. Davis (1931) two cases, Jervell (1933), Gunewardene (1934), Hawkes (1935), Kampmann (1935), Schilder (1935), Bean (1937) three cases, Kissane (1937) nine cases, Barber (1938) ten cases, Kienle (1938), Moritz and Atkins (1938), Peters (1938) two cases, Stormer (1938), Campbell (1939), O'Farrell (1939), Smith and McKeown (1939), Rajasingham (1939), Wiillenweber (1939), and five unpublished cases observed by or communicated to me.